ck-work she
offered me a seat on the floor, a fan and congratulations. This
last simply because I was me. The house was ancient and beautiful.
The room in which I sat had nothing in it but matting as fine as
silk, a rare old vase with two flowers and a leaf in formal
arrangement, and an atmosphere of aloofness that lulled mind and
body to restful revery. After my capacity for tea and sugared
dough was tested, the little serving maid fanning me, bowing every
time I blinked, the paper doors near by divided noiselessly and,
framed by the dim light, sat the young bride, quaint and oriental
as if she had stepped out of some century-old kakemono. In
contrast to my recent hostesses it was like coming from a garden of
brilliant flowers into the soft, quiet shadows of a bamboo grove.
No modern touch about this lady. She had been reduced by rule from
a romping girl to a selfless creature fit for a Japanese
gentleman's wife and no questions asked. Her hair, her dress, and
even her speech were strictly by the laws laid down in a book for
the thirty-first day of the first month after marriage. But I
would like to see the convention with a crust thick enough to
entirely obliterate one woman's interest in another whose clothes
and life belong to a distant land. When I told her I had come to
Japan against Jack's wishes and was going to follow him to China if
I could, she paled at my rashness. How could a woman dare disobey?
Would not my husband send me home, take my name off the house
register and put somebody in my place?

Well now, wouldn't you like to see the scientist play any such
tricks with me--that blessed old Jack who smiles at my follies,
asks my advice, and does as he pleases, and for whom there has
never been but the one woman in the world! I struggled to make
plain to her the attitude of American men and women and the
semi-independence of the latter. As well explain theology to a
child. To her mind the undeviating path of absolute obedience was
the only possible way. Anything outside of a complete renunciation
of self-interest and thought meant ruin and was not even to be
whispered about. I gave it up and came back to her sphere of
poetry and mothers-in-law.

When I said good-by there was a gentle pity in her eyes, for she
was certain her long-time friend was headed for the highroad of
destruction. But instead I turned into the dim solitude of Shiba
Park. I had something to think about. To-day's experi